One of the annoyances of Wordpress is that when a new version comes out, you have to take the time to upgrade. Sure, it may be just re-uploading everything, but that still takes a few minutes per blog and I think that’s why a lot of people tend not to do it. To work around this, the InstantUpgrade plugin was created. Good idea, but is it ready for primetime yet?

The plugin explains that it can automatically update to the latest version of Wordpress for you, or you can tell it when to update the files for you. It does all the work and you get to sit back and relax.

The first red flag is how many files you need to make writable by the server. The privileges 777 mean that the files are writable by everyone. This sounds like a hackers dream to me but maybe I’m wrong.

It also concerns me that every time there is a Wordpress upgrade, some plugins must be updated too. Thus, if it upgrades when you aren’t around, and a plugin breaks, how long will it take you to find out and will your blog be down?

I did it, I took the jump to Wordpress 2.1 here at BloggerDesign and it wasn’t quite as slick as I had hoped. I have done the upgrade on a few other blogs with no issues, but for some reason this one freaked out a bit.

I think it all surrounds the fact that I didn’t deactivate my plugins. You know they say to do that, but I forgot. Guess what, they mean it. When I went to run the update script, it wouldn’t do its thing. And I couldn’t deactivate the plugins as I already had the files updated on the server. To get around it, I renamed the plugin folder and then it worked great.

After getting my plugins back up and running the blog seems realllly slow. I tried to track down the issue and I think it was Headspace2. I updated it and it seems better now. If you notice it’s slow, or if it seems fine, let me know. I’m a bit paranoid now.

The more I use Wordpress 2.1 the more I see what has changed. Minor things but yet not all good things. I’ll have to whip up a post on that next week.

I’ve been testing out FeedBurners StandardStats package and it’s a great start for a free stats program. The data seem to be online with Google Analytics and the look and feel is great for the non-techie person.

Starting off, the setup is easy. Just log into your FeedBurner account and activate StandardStats. One click of the button and your done with step one. The next step is to implement the code on your site and I think it could be easier.

Currently, you choose your blogging platform from the dropdown and it gives you the code to add to your template. It tells you where to put it but I think it’s a bit much for average users. For example, you have to put the code in the post-meta loop. Everyone knows where that is right?

With that in mind, I created the FB StandardStats plugin for Wordpress to do all the code implementation for you. It makes it extremely easy for anyone to get the code in the right spot with very little work.

The past few days have been great for the FB StandardsStats plugin. Not only have I been in communication with the FeedBurner folks, it also got mentioned on the FeedBurner buzz blog. That gave the plugin some great exposure and uncovered a few bugs. It’s since been updated and re-packaged and FB StandardStats 1.0b is now available.

The biggest update is how the plugin displays the FeedBurner code. It seems that I was showing it not only on blog posts, but also in the feed. This could cause issues and confusion with feeds burned at FeedBurner. So I added a few lines of extra code to ensure that it only adds the StandardStats code in the browser version of posts and not in the feeds.

Other than that, there were a few download issues that could have come from web server issues or other formatting oddities. I think those are all worked out now.

Ohh and one more, if you get a 404 error when trying to update the FB StandardStats options page, that means that you uploaded the entire directory. The only file that needs to be uploaded is fb_standardstats.php. No folders.

While working on a review of StandardStats from FeedBurner, the only real negative thing I could come up with was the fact that the install wasn’t simple for non-techies. Sure it’s easy for some, but I thought it could be easier. So I created the FeedBurner StandardStats Wordpress plugin.

FB StandardStats makes installing FeedBurner’s stats code simple. No files to edit and no wondering if you got the code in the right place. Simply put in your user ID and the plugin will do the rest.

As a bonus, the plugin can also be used to show FeedFlare links on each blog post.

To Install:

1. Download FB StandardStats 1.0b
2. Upload fb_standardstats.php to the /plugins/ directory of your blog.
3. Activate via the Plugins area in Wordpress’ admin.
4. Go to the FB StandardStats options page and enter your StandardStats ID. Instructions on finding this ID are on the FB StandardStats options page.

That’s it. The plugin automatically enters in the code to the template files and you’ll start getting stats as soon as you get visitors.

Let me know what issues you run across and any success stories too. I’ve got it running on three blogs including this one and it seems to work fine.

Wordpress 2.1 has been released and one of the biggest changes has to do with plugins. Reading 10 Things You should Know About WordPress 2.1 they said “many plugins will no longer work in 2.1“!

Ok, that freaked me out a little. I like to stay up to date, but I can’t live without some of my plugins.

The good news is that there is a plugin compatibility page where they are trying to list all the plugins that work, or don’t work, with Wordpress 2.1. The biggest red flag I saw was Ultimate Tag Warrior. Give it a few days though and it’ll be ready to go.

If you don’t see a certain plugin on the compatible page, and you can’t find updated information from the author, drop the plugin name below with a link to it and I’ll see if I can’t get it tested for you.

Overall Wordpress 2.1 looks nice, but I’ve only had it installed for 10 minutes on my test blog.

This tutorial will run though the basics of posting to a Blogger blog. It’s intended for newbies and should give a quick overview to get you started.

Step 1: Login

There are actually two steps here. Since Blogger recently upgraded their services, they now have two different types of logins. One for all the new accounts that have been merged with Google accounts and one for all the original Blogger signups that haven’t converted over. If you don’t know which one you are, ask the person that setup the blog for you.

Once you have chosen New Blogger or Old Blogger you will be presented with the login boxes. Enter your username and password and hit Sign In.

Step 2: The Dashboard

This is the starting point for all Blogger accounts. It will list the blogs that you have the ability to post to and give you a few other options. Lets click on the New Post link to create a new blog entry.

Step 3: The Post

There is a lot of discussion about a few bigger named bloggers getting hacked recently. The good thing to come out if this is that it’s bringing backups into the spotlight.

Back on October 13th I declared Blog Backup Day and I’m working on spreading the word. If your posts are backed up, it’ll be a lot easier to recover from such an attack. I’ve even outlined some techniques to backing up your blog. Including the extremely easy way to backup a Wordpress blog which seems to be the platform under attack.

Wordpress does acknowledge the security issue and has *hopefully* fixed the security bug in the latest releases . All users should upgrade as soon as they can!

I feel bad for the sites that got hacked as I know that they don’t deserve it. But lets all take this as a warning that we are not immune and that blogs, and all digital information, needs to be backed up regularly.

I’m off to backup my posts and upgrade my Wordpress install. How about you?

Yesterday I discussed options when installing Wordpress isn’t an option. Quite a few included domain mapping and phydeaux3 informed me that Blogger is now offering domain mapping for free.

Domain mapping allows you to buy a domain and have it show content that is hosted someplace else. Basically, you’d buy a domain and then map it to your BlogSpot account and it’d appear that you’d have a fully hosted website. No one would see http://you.blogspot.com anymore, they’d see http://www.cool-domain.com.

The plus side to this is that you don’t need to buy hosting. Just keep using Bloggers webspace and resources. All you’d need to do is buy a domain, usually $9.99 a year, and work with your registrar to map that domain to your BlogSpot account.

Domain mapping Blogger blogs must be inline with Google’s hosted applications idea. You just need a domain name and you can map your website to your BlogSpot account, your email to your Gmail account and keep everything organized with Google Calendar.

Has anyone tried domain mapping with Blogger yet?

[tags]domain-mapping[/tags]

Not every host has the ability to install and run Wordpress. Some hosts use Windows servers where PHP and MySQL are not usually included. So then what? What is the next best blogging software?

My first thought is Blogger. Since the new version was released, it’s back in the running. It has the ability to post to an external site in a directory which is a plus. I’d rather stay away from sub-domains if possible. Blogger also has labels (aka categories), editable templates and enough features for most bloggers. Plus it’s free. The downsides is that Blogger isn’t realy seen as a professional platform and when they have problems, you won’t be able to do much about.

Another one is TypePad. It has a domain mapping feature but I don’t think it can map to a folder. It has to be routed to either a domain or a sub-domain which is unfortunate. If I’m wrong, someone please tell me. I’d love be wrong in this case. Either way, to get domain mapping you need at least a Plus account ($8.95/m) and access to update your DNS records though your domain registrar. Other than that, it’s a pretty decent choice.